13. Birchas HaShachar: Shelo Asani Aved Wednesday 3 Adar 2 5774/ March 5 2014. The questions: 1) This Bracha is also Negative, I’m not a slave rather than I’m free, 2) Why is this after I’m not a gentile and before I’m not a woman? 3) This case we change from the order in the ShaS where Isha is before Aved, why the change? Fifteen ideas for this Bracha and one thought joins them all together. Slavery means total freedom and total suppression. One must be altogether free to choose and make himself a servant of God. When one has limitations of all sorts, he is enslaved and not free (in full possession of himself!) The Bracha I’m not a slave means I own myself so totally that I can have the deepest possible relationship with God and be obligated to do all the Mitzvos. The slave is exempt from many because the parts of himself he doesn’t own he cannot give Him.
